Of all the works of Rumiko Takahashi, this certainly is the best, the script is well written and does not fall into the pretentiousness, which happens in many animes looking to be dark, something that can do well this series. Yuta has a poor desarroollo but his personality is well done and the way we learn from the past what makes a good character. Mana on the other hand is the most development has in the plot as it begins as the silly girl to be caring and as they pass the chapters we see it being more useful for Yuta. The voice acting and soundtrackare good because they go well with the dark and mysterious atmosphere that has the series.
The animation is simple but in the last chapters we see that all animators work possible are taken as to give a farewell to the series.
The only points that you play against are: dependence on a formula repeated in chapters but their plots two chapters are taken so that we can familiarize ourselves with the characters in turn and the place where our protagonists; The other point is final as this series could have given more and had the potential to go but could not because Rumiko started working at InuYasha.
Mermaid Forest is a recommended picture with good characters, simple animation but is improving and a nice soundtrack, plus it is a very underrated work, eventhough this is different in essence to all works of Rumiko since we know their stories for being funny and daring but this is quite the opposite.